


Fate's Idea of a Joke

by lar_laughs



Category: Castle, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Castle is a superhero, Clint is a detective, F/M, fandom mish mash, new york is still destroyed by aliens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-12
Updated: 2013-01-12
Packaged: 2017-11-25 03:58:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/634878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lar_laughs/pseuds/lar_laughs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Detective Clint Barton was content to let the arrival of superheroes in New York slide on by.  It's too much for him to handle, especially seeing as it brings up memories of the death of his parents.  Along comes Natasha Romanov, dragging him in to places he's not sure he wants to go so she can get her story.  Sometimes, fate really is funny.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fate's Idea of a Joke

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Anuna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anuna/gifts).



> This is written expressly for anuna_81's birthday! She was the first one I knew of to do a Avengers/Castle crossover. This is in honor of her!

“You seen this yet?” A newspaper landed on the desk in front of Clint. He’d been trying to figure out which numbers he was going to play in the lottery this week, his extremely good detecting skills coming into play as he went through the last several weeks of numbers. Considering how slow things had been in the precinct lately, it was the only thing he had to keep his skills sharp. Who would have ever thought that crime in New York would ever decline so steeply that police officers were considering a new line of work.

He’d stopped reading the newspapers for a reason so he looked up slowly at his partner, her expression so bland that an outside observer might think that she didn’t feel anything at the moment. Clint knew Maria better than the outside observer. He saw the anger and, in tinier portion, the despair.

That could only mean one thing. Sure enough, as he picked up the paper and wanted to throw it right back down. _Capped Crusaders Clear the City of Scum Once and For All_ The reporter was obviously a comic book fan who hadn’t paid much attention to the new lycra-clad superheroes because none of them had been wearing a cape.

“Why do they think this is going to last forever?” He threw the paper back down, already too disgusted to read the article. “They’ll be moving on again soon enough, back to whatever asteroid they came from in the first place.”

Maria wandered off, back to the archives where she spent time in these days, researching other instances of superheroism she swore were there if someone looked hard enough. She’d left the newspaper with him but Clint just shoved it off his desk, intent on his lottery numbers once again. If things kept up like they were, he was going to need some other way of earning money. Lottery wealth seemed like a good way to go.

***

“I’m here for your side of the story.”

This time, Clint was pulled from the lottery numbers by a low, sexy voice that appeared to be connected to an equally sexy woman. His partner was normally the one to attract the sexy woman and he was the one who got the strange cases with women who owned too many cats or heard voices that told them to throw jam at people walking down the street. This was something new. So much so that he wasn’t even sure that she was talking to him.

“I don’t have a story,” he answered as he looked over each of his shoulders. No one else was within hearing range so she was obviously here for him. “Do I know you?”

The red-headed woman held out her hand to him. “Natasha Romanov. My books all say Natalie Rushman, though.”

“Oh, shit,” he said without thinking, immediately pulling his hand back. She wasn’t a reporter but she was a writer that he recognized and that was still pretty bad. Over the years, he’d grown used to his words being twisted around so that they barely say what he meant them to in the first place. Immediately, he began to run through the last few weeks, wondering what he’d done to incur the wrath of the press.

“Can I quote you on that?” But she was grinning at him instead of writing anything down or holding out a recorder. “Chief Fury told me you were the man to talk to about what you experienced with the newcomers to our city. I’d like your side of the story.”

“What story?” He held up the paper with all his lottery possibilities. “Right now, my job is to keep this chair warm while I try to figure out all possible ways I can make a living because this job is no longer any sort of job.”

“But you’ve met them.”

The matter-of-fact way that she said that, as if she hadn’t really been listening to him or she hadn’t cared, made him pause in his frantic ranting. “Who?”

“Nikki Heat. Castle. Captain Javi and The Kid. The... superheroes.” The way she said the word held as much distaste as Clint felt in that moment. “You’ve met them,” she stated again, as if she felt she needed to remind him why she was still standing there.

Clint felt the blood flow from his face. After a moment, he swayed and had to put a hand on his desk to steady himself. “I have.” His voice cracked in a way that suddenly brought himself back to himself, aware of now much like a wimp he sounded like. Clint straightened his shoulders and took a deep breath. “I have but I don’t think I’m exactly your entrance to a meeting.”

“You’re perfect.”

He wasn’t sure why but Clint felt his future path fall into place with a jarring thud that made his stomach turn over and his heart clench in his chest.

***

He stayed silent throughout the entire conversation. Not that he felt that anyone noticed because everyone else was too busy talking all at once. The superheroes appeared to remember him from that day when the city fell apart, praising him for his quick thinking in getting the people off the street and out of harm’s way. Then, when Natasha started asking her questions, he more or less faded into the background. He didn’t mind, though. Not in the least. He would have preferred to not have been part of the meeting, at all.

His job had always been to protect the people of the city of New York. It was a calling, more than anything else. Before their death when he was just a child, his father had been a beat cop and his mom had worked in dispatch. It was how they met and, oddly enough, how they both died. One bomb to the building and New York had lost two shining stars. No one could explain how they had been the only one in the building that Sunday afternoon or even why, for no apparent reason, someone had chosen to take out a police station. No one had ever come forward and it remained the case that haunted Clint in his sleep.

That fateful day when beings from space had dropped out of a hole in the sky, certain things had started to line up in Clint’s mind. He knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that his parents had been killed by beings not of this world. It had seemed preposterous before but now it made perfect sense. Now everyone knew that the impossible could happen.

Natasha got what she’d come for and turned back to Clint. “Ready to go?”

He nodded, wondering why she cared if he stayed or left now that she’d gotten what she wanted from him. Taking his arm, she steered him where she wanted him to go until they ended up back at her car. He figured she would drop him off at the door to the precinct but she pulled into a parking garage and parked.

“I’ve done my research on you. Just so you know. So we’re both on the same page. I know about your theories. I also know about how those same theories kept you from being promoted like you should have been. How your partner’s stuck with you and tried to help. Tell me, Detective Barton. Do you really believe your parents were killed by an alien conspiracy?”

The way she said it didn’t sound like she was making fun of him but he couldn’t help but go into defensive mode. Too much had happened over the years for him not to put up his guard whenever this was discussed. He said, “Yeah,” as if he was really saying, “Whaddya want to make of it?”

Her smile was heartbreaking, not just because it made her look even more gorgeous than before but because she wasn’t making fun of him. There was no sort of derision coming from her. She was truly asking him a question and not questioning his sanity.

Clint took a deep breath, trying to find the part of him that still believed that finding out what happened to his parents would make it okay that they’d died. That peace about their deaths would be enough. “I do think they were killed by something that we couldn’t even begin to comprehend back then. I don’t know if we can now but I do know that we’re closer now than we were then. Hell, they say that Castle is a demi-god. That’s not something that’s supposed to happen outside of story books.”

“I wasn’t lying when I said that I was here for your side of the story, Clint.”

Then he did something really stupid. As soon as he heard her say his name, with that low growl in her voice that made him think about long nights in front of the fire and Saturday afternoons spent in bed, he leaned forward and kissed her.

He sat back as soon as he realized what he’d done. All the signals had been in his head so he was ready for her to slap him or to shove him out of the car and drive over his prone body a few times. Maria had done her duty and taught him how to treat a woman and this most definitely wasn’t anything she’d sign off on.

As he began to stammer out an apology, she leaned forward to mimic his earlier exploration. This time, no one pulled back. His hands twisted in her loose hair as she slid hers up under his t-shirt, tracing her fingers over the ridges of his abdomen.

“I’ve been wanting to do that since I walked up to your desk.” Her husky voice shivered over his skin as she traced her lips over his cheek to his ear. “I must say, I’m surprised in you, Detective Barton. You don’t seem the type to take advantage of a lady.”

His only response was to growl as she nipped at the sensitive skin of his jaw. Who was taking advantage of whom? he wondered. Then one hand moved under the waistband of his jeans and he stopped thinking altogether.

***

Three months later, the world had righted itself. New York City was well on the way to being rebuilt although there were still parts of the city that looked like a giant armored squid had flown in and through the buildings. Superheroes had been dispatched to other points in the globe so as not to call attention their continued presence in one place. This meant that the New York police force was putting in extra hours but none of them minded. It was a job. One that they thought they wouldn’t have for very much longer.

Clint was no longer among their esteemed roster but he was still busy. He was freelance these days, taking on a certain type of case. Maria stayed where she was, always on the lookout for snippets of information Clint might be able to use, all with the complements of Chief Fury and a grateful city.

No one thought he was crazy any longer. That, in and of itself, was a nice feeling. The truth about what had really happened to his parents had come out and the resulting aftermath had been dealt with. He was, in the grand scheme of things, free. Free from the guilt that he couldn’t solve the one case that meant more to him than anything else in the world. Free from the pressure to be just like his parents. Free to look elsewhere for fulfillment.

And free to look for a new apartment. His had been in one of the building that had been torn down and repaired even though it had been liveable until such time as they decided to take it down. Still, it had been part of a time that Clint liked to think was long past. It was time for something new.

Which was why he was standing in the middle of the world’s largest apartment, trying to visualize where he was going to put the few things he was able, and wanted, to salvage from his place. He wasn’t completely sure he had the money for the rent on the place but Natasha had been insistent he look at it. As usual, she was right. It had a view that made his heart hurt as he looked out over the city that he loved. He could only imagine what it would look like at night with the city dressed up in it’s finest.

“Do I really need this many rooms?” he asked without turning around from the window. It was hard to miss the click clack of her favorite shoes on the hardwood floors. “It’s just me and I don’t normally take up a lot of room.”

“What if you were to need the room?” Natasha twined her arms around his middle, fitting her head in the curve of his shoulder where she seemed to fit the best. “What if you suddenly got more stuff?”

“Why would I get more stuff?”

He grunted when the fingers of one hand began to explore under his belt. “How many different ways am I going to have to use to get you to ask me to move in with you?”

“But your apartment is perfect. Why would you... uh, Natasha?”

“Yes, love?” She let out a laugh as he swung her around so they were facing each other, her back pressed against the glass. “Are you going to ask me?”

He lifted her up so that she could wrap her legs around his waist, her skillful hands already undoing his zipper. For a moment, he hesitated, drinking in the sight of her framed by the twilight of New York.

“Wanna move in with me?”

Her smile was brilliant in the dim light. “Of course, love. I thought you’d never ask.”


End file.
